Deepening Our Explorations of Reality

“We of the global community of spiritual practitioners owe it to each other to dialogue, critique, and deeply listen.”Bruce Alderman

Bruce Alderman, poet, mystic, and spiritual explorer, is also an integral scholar and pioneer of the emerging field of metatheory, looking at how to put our disparate fields of information—spiritual, psychological, philosophical, environmental, scientific—together and integrate them into a useful whole.

Here Bruce tells the tale of how he was drawn into an experiential exploration of different worldviews, how he came to find the value in navigating different spiritual traditions, and how he discovered how to integrate mystical experiences, Asian spiritual teachings, and Western education, science, and psychology. Bruce’s unique understanding of interreligious relationships and their potential for meeting current challenges informs his call to the global community of spiritual practitioners to dialogue, critique, deeply listen, and reap the benefits of reflecting back to the other a view that takes them deeper in their understanding of their own position. Bruce also shares a brilliant vision of leadership training practices for developing the skills leaders will need to navigate the unfolding global crises of our time. This program will take form in the upcoming Blue Sky Leaders program at the California Institute of Integral Studies.

Bruce is beautifully eloquent on many levels, sharing insights on intensifying our intimate experience of Being, trusting our dialogue with Being to bear fruit, and finding coherence while holding multiple paths. Bruce describes his turn towards scholarship and academia as “dancing on the subtle plane,” and thinking as one spiritual practice among many—a practice of union. There are so many gems of wisdom here, relayed in Bruce’s gently humorous, humble, and erudite manner. Bruce also inspires on how each of us can become a change agent simply by being integrous with who we are.

Recorded December 6, 2023.

Topics & Timestamps: Part 1

Introducing spiritual pioneer, polymath, and master of metatheory, Bruce Alderman (01:38)
How Bruce was drawn into an experiential exploration of different worldviews (04:06)
Bruce’s first mystical experiences (07:17)
Traveling in Asia, studying music & meditation, not wanting to have to choose one tradition to the exclusion of others (08:37)
How to integrate mystical desert experiences, Asian spiritual teachings, and Western education, science, psychology? (11:16)
Finding the value in navigating different spiritual traditions and coming face to face with the contradictions between them (14:45)
Practicing more than one path at once can cause anguish, incoherence, and also has distinct benefits, and how some traditions can hold the one and the many at the same time (19:55)
As A. H. Almaas also came to, the recognition of co-ultimacy of multiple ultimates (22:20)
Opening oneself to as much as one can: psyche and existence are self-awakening (23:56)
Hungry for the stories and experiences of humankind and all of their engagements with Being (25:59)
The concept of generative enclosure: that consciousness is embedded in the environment and embodied in the body—our experience of the world is mediated by our own context (29:47)
Spiritual practice, focusing our enclosures, can invite an intensification of our own experience of being (31:32)
Generative (en)closures, bubbles, and magic circles (33:29)
Language is an enactment of being (34:22)
Metaphysics tends to look at things with nouns, but what’s coming forward is prepositional modes of being/thinking, intercontextuality, and adverbial thinking—recognizing that being unfolds in different ways at different times (35:34)
With/in (with, in, and within) a holographic, nondual recognition, the world is in you and you are in the world, I am with you, you are in me, I am in you (37:46)
We of the global community of spiritual practitioners owe it to each other to dialogue, critique, and deeply listen (41:33)
There’s no one final point: we call the idea of an ultimate holon the ass holon (44:26)
Leadership: we can each become agents of transformation, healing, and insight by being integrous with who we are (46:25)
The Blue Sky Leaders program is designed around the question, How do we navigate the deep challenges of our time? (47:29)
Different styles of leadership: emperor or servant-based (50:36)
Ryan Nakade’s platinum man model: making it a practice to be able to reflect back to the other a view that takes them deeper in their understanding of their own position (52:24)

Topics & Timestamps: Part 2

The wild knot as symbol for a human being or culture: we are threads of a relationship that don’t have a final terminus (00:53)
The challenges of our time and the need for entangled deep listening (01:59)
A leadership training program that includes ongoing contemplative inquiry & practice, and also looks at cultural, political, ecological & spiritual dynamics and new cosmologies (02:26)
Hyperobjects: you can’t see climate change, economic collapse, or evolution from a local point of view—it demands collective vision to perceive and apprehend it (04:13)
Bruce’s vision for leadership development and the Blue Sky Leaders program empower people to serve in the great issues of our time (06:13)
The bodhisattva ideal is both empowering and self-canceling (10:07)
The metaphor of light, salt, and leaven for anyone wanting to be a change agent and serve the flourishing of life (13:23)
Krishnamurti’s idea of “living in learning” and a program that is “deliberately developmental” (16:42)
What are the specific practices essential for cultivating leaders to navigate the crises that are unfolding? (22:00)
We evolved to be optimally functional on a much smaller level—without proper grounding, facing world problems can cause existential crisis (26:13)
Holding a loving center, living and learning together (28:28)
Back to interreligious practice: how interfaith dialogues and encounters have typically been handled: exclusivist, inclusivist, pluralist (33:24)
In making room for multiple paths of spiritual practice, there is a danger of moving into instrumentalism, thinking practices are mere recipes (36:31)
The grit to do the practices and the humility of opening to grace (39:36)
What are Bruce’s practices today? (40:21)
Bruce’s TSK practice (attuning to time/space/knowledge) that leads him to deep integration (41:35)
Nonfinality: how each awakening leads to yet another, sacred secularity (45:35)
How did Bruce enter into his exquisite scholarship? Philosophy and academic work is just another way to dance on the subtle plane (49:41)

Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos
Image by Bruce Alderman

Presented by iAwake Technologies’ innovative, sound-tech infused Brain Awake.

Brain Awake is a uniquely powerful audio program for accessing states of peak performance and flow. Weaving a profound, transformational, guided meditation with advanced brainwave entrainment technology, Brain Awake is designed to dramatically boost your concentration, memory, intuition, and creativity.

A hypnotic inner journey to awaken the true potential of your brain
Experience a beautifully immersive soundscape of 3D nature sounds, evocative sound textures, and harmonically layered brainwave pulses
Feel energized, inspired, and ready to perform at your best

Check out the free sample:

Click here to hear more!

About the Deep Transformation series

We are clearly in a new era, facing world-threatening challenges and graced with barely conceivable opportunities. In this mind-boggling new world, we all face two crucial questions:

First, the ever-present conundrum of how to best live fully, deeply, wisely, and well.
Second, the new question unique to our times, how to best understand and heal our endangered world.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to hear responses to these questions from some of the great consciousness pioneers—the outstanding thinkers, sages, scientists, and activists—of our time? These are the people and conversations that Deep Transformation offers.

Deep Transformation: Self-Society-Spirit draws on diverse ideas from around the world. It goes beyond traditional positions and polarities—beyond left and right, material and spiritual—to seek syntheses of deep wisdom and practical know-how that integrate the best of all positions.

Click here to learn more about Deep Transformation!

Previous Episodes of Deep Transformation

Ken Wilber’s Map of Everything

Brad Reynolds

Brad Reynolds gives us a beautiful distillation of Ken Wilber’s work, starting from the beginning and spanning decades. Not only does Brad elegantly relate the major themes of Ken’s work, he also makes clear the value of Ken’s contributions—the way this knowledge can be understood and applied to literally expand our notion of reality and evolve our consciousness

The Psychology of Climate Change

Gail Hochachka

Climate change researcher, sustainable development expert, and activist Gail Hochachka works on the front lines of climate change research, asking—and answering—questions like: How does the way we make meaning, at all our different stages of development, relate to the ways we act on climate change? How can we foster more engagement with climate change? Is climate action scalable? And how are we going to show up for the people who are facing the greatest impacts?

Bringing Soul and Integrity to American Politics

Marianne Williamson

More than a political talk, Marianne reveals a psychological and spiritual portrait of the United States, referencing the brilliant vision of our founding fathers, Martin Luther King’s goal of Beloved Community, and telling a stirring story of the way Abraham Lincoln’s second inauguration reflects the high morality of the populace at that time.

Buddhas in Blue: Enlightened Ways to Make Policing Work For Everyone

Ryan Johansen

In this moving, illuminating, and impassioned discussion, retired Police Lt. Chris Orrey and San Bruno Police Chief Ryan Johansen open our eyes as to the realities of policing in today’s world and offer solutions as to how the entire institution of police work could be transformed to become more effective and sustainable, both for police officers and for the communities they serve.

The Essence of Awakening: Who Are We Really?

Lama Surya Das

Lama Surya Das, beloved meditation teacher, scholar, pioneer of bringing Tibetan Buddhism to the West, and author of the bestseller Awakening the Buddha Within among many more, shares bright gems of wisdom from his extensive experience practicing Dzogchen, his long immersion in meditation retreats, and studying in person with the great spiritual teachers of Asia.

Building a Just World: How Our Laws Express Our Collective Values

Mark Fischler

Constitutional law expert and criminal justice professor Mark Fischler has a thirst for justice and a gift for teaching. With cogency and passion, Mark explains that law is not the absolute that we perhaps thought, but an ever changing reflection of the values we hold as a society. Law is a developmental process, and will benefit from our own dedication to inner moral development.

The Enneagram as a Spiritual Tool

Leslie Hershberger

Enneagram expert, teacher, master facilitator, and transformational coach Leslie Hershberger leads us into the world of the Enneagram, painting a broader, deeper picture of the Enneagram and its uses as a psycho-spiritual tool than is commonly understood.

From Race to Culture to Kosmos

Greg Thomas

Join cultural analyst and co-founder of the Jazz Leadership Project, Greg Thomas, as he explores the transformative power of culture, using his knowledge of jazz and blues as a conduit to greater understanding and connection. Greg tackles layered issues of race through a systemic lens, suggesting a shift from racial to cultural worldview, offering an enlightening dialogue filled with anecdotes from music history and a rich exploration of how shared cultural experiences can dissolve boundaries and unite us all.

Grappling with the Metacrisis

Sean Esbjörn-Hargens

In this dialogue, the world of metatheories comes alive with urgent, purposeful meaning, because as Sean and Nick point out, integrative metatheories like Ken Wilber’s integral theory and Roy Bhaskar’s critical realism are the only tools that provide a useful framework for us to talk about and confront the vast web of interrelated and wicked problems we face on every level at this time.

Illuminating the Integral Vision: A Metatheory for Understanding Self, Life, and the World

Corey deVos

Corey gives a terrifically lucid explanation of what the term Integral encompasses: a stage of psychological development, a description of Ken Wilber’s life’s work, and a comprehensive map that comes alive for people, guiding their way and making sense out of enormously complex issues. Corey also describes Integral as a gateway between two massive phases in human history — the “adolescent” phase of collective development now starting to fall behind us, and an integrated phase quite possibly ahead.

The Edge of the Future: Education, Civilization, and the Metacrisis

Zach Stein

Educator, author, philosopher, and futurist Zachary Stein gives a startling account of the effects the digital age already has on education and where this is headed. Zak sees education in a deeply philosophical sense as fundamental to the sustainability of our civilization, with implications for each component of the metacrisis. Who will be driving the technology stack that actually leads to a viable civilization? Can we maintain our psychological sovereignty in a sea of digital propaganda and know the truth?

The Human Potential Movement: Then and Now

Mike Murphy

Michael Murphy, author, co-founder of the world-famous Esalen Institute, and pioneer of the Human Potential Movement starting in the 60s, relates a wealth of intimate experience, knowledge, and wisdom covering his decades of living at the leading edge of transformative practice and the realization of human potential.

Nature as Teacher: Finding Beauty, Wisdom, and Self in Everything

Susanne Cook-Greuter

Adult psychology pioneer and ego development expert Susanne Cook-Greuter introduces us to her favorite wisdom teacher: Nature. Susanne explains how Integral Theory’s 3-2-1 Process can be practiced with elements in nature to gain greater insight into the teachings of nature—evolution, cycles of life and death, the transience of life, the beauty that is everywhere—and to experience oneness with all.

Awakening Joy: Life Skills for Living, Loving, and Serving Life to the Full

James Baraz

James’ teachings take us deeply into states like gratitude and compassionate presence, to where we can focus our attention on how it feels to feel good somatically, thereby creating new neural pathways that strengthen awareness and aliveness. James has witnessed a lot of people learn to love themselves and turn their lives around as a result of this teaching.

Nonduality (And Beyond)

A. H. Almaas

A.H. Almaas (Hameed Ali), renowned author and co-creator of the Diamond Approach, describes his own process of inquiry and some of what he has come to discover in his lifelong pursuit to understand the nature of reality and know the truth.

The Source and Heart of Judaism and the Great Religions

Zvi Ish-Shalom

In this remarkable conversation, Zvi describes how he found ways to map and interpret his own profound mystical experiences, how the teachings arise from the ground of being, about how they might become accessible to us all, regardless of religion or spiritual tradition, and how they are especially relevant for young people today, seeking to find a structure for their spiritual journey.

Vertical Development’s Many Gifts

Beena Sharma

Beena Sharma, president of the Vertical Development Academy (VeDA), gives a beautifully cogent explanation of the 8-stage, full spectrum model of adult psychological development, Vertical Development — illuminating us not only to the characteristics of each stage of development, but the implications and ramifications of each stage, the process of human development as a whole, and how this model can help us face our current metacrisis.

The Remarkable Practice of Dream Yoga

Andrew Holecek

Lucid dreaming expert, author, “curiouist,” and integralist Andrew Holecek explains how lucid dreaming opens the door to a greatly expanded understanding of our minds, our perception of reality, and human potential altogether.

How to Heal a Culture That Has Lost Its Soul

Alexander Beiner

Rebel Wisdom co-founder Alexander Beiner has his finger on the cultural pulse of our times. Here he explores key challenges we face as a global community: sensemaking and truth finding in an culture that has lost its coherence as well as its sense of the divine, and what role psychedelics might play both therapeutically and spiritually in healing our culture. He discusses the need to go beyond the intellectual to find clarity and coherence, using embodied practices like meditation and inquiry, and explains how modalities such as these are an essential container for therapeutic psychedelic experiences.

From Bodhisattva to Ecosattva: Integrating Personal Practice and Global Activism

David Loy

David Loy, Zen teacher, scholar, and prolific author, reveals his acute understanding of the crises we face today, the psychology at the root of the problems, and how we can make our way forward in this in-depth discussion. He has adopted the term ecodharma to focus attention on the challenge Buddhism faces now: integrating personal transformation with global activism and social transformation. As David points out, the focus needs to be on this world, with transcendence being a metaphorical understanding but not an excuse to abandon the problems we and our planet face today.

Healing Collective Trauma: We Are All Shareholders in a Traumatized World

Thomas Hübl

Thomas Hübl, renowned spiritual teacher, author, expert on collective trauma, and creator and facilitator of The Collective Trauma Integration Process, shares fascinating, life changing information about the dynamics of collective trauma — how it is embodied and perpetuated in the language we use, and how we are bound together in a sort of “mutual collusion” that predisposes us to repeat our past, and to repeat over and over the things we would much rather leave behind.

Become a member today to watch this video presentation and support the global emergence of Integral consciousness

About Bruce Alderman

Bruce Alderman, MA, is an affiliate faculty at John F. Kennedy University in the Consciousness and Transformative Studies and Holistic Counseling Psychology departments. After years of moderating several integral discussion forums of his own, including Integral Postmetaphysical Spirituality and Integral Scholarship and Practice, he is venturing into production of integral video content himself.

About John Dupuy

John Dupuy is co-founder and CEO of iAwake Technologies, a company that creates cutting-edge, high-tech brainwave entrainment soundtracks that support the healing of emotional/shadow issues, deepen meditation, mental focus, creativity, and flow states, and enhance a daily integral transformative practice. John has been working personally and professionally with brainwave entrainment technology since 2004, and travels internationally to teach and inspire on the subjects of Integral Transformative Practice and Integral Recovery®. John is also the author of Integral Recovery: A Revolutionary Approach to the Treatment of Alcoholism and Addiction (SUNY Press, 2013), winner of the 2013 USA Best Book Award, and co-host of the popular Journey of Integral Recovery podcast. John also hosts the online series Spiritual Tech Talks 2.0, in which he converses with leaders, pioneers, and inventors on the current wave of emerging spiritual technologies.

About Roger Walsh

Roger Walsh, M.D., Ph.D., has spent nearly a quarter century researching and practicing in the world's great spiritual traditions. His critically acclaimed book, Essential Spirituality, is a summary of that wisdom, outlining the seven spiritual practices common to the world's major religions.